BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

OF 

HON. JOHN PETER ALTGELD 

TWENTIETH GOVERNOR OF ILLINOIS 
BY 
EDWARD OsGooD BROWN 
READ BEFORE 
THE CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIHTY 


DECEMBER 5, 1905 


ON THE OCCASION OF THE PRESENTATION 
TO THE SOCIETY OF GOVERNOR ALTGELD’S PORTRAIT 
THE GIFT OF 
JOSEPH S. MARTIN 
OF CHICAGO 


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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF JOHN PETER ALTGELD, 


As a member of the Chicago Historical Society I wish 
to express the gratitude which, in common I doubt not with 
all the members of the Society, I feel to those who have 
generously made it the trustee and custodian of the por- 
traits which are for the first time exhibited here to-night. It 
was a wise and public-spirited act as I believe. In the 
constant changes of our political and social organiza- 
tions, societies like ours represent that which is in the truest 
and most praiseworthy sense conservative. Removed from 
the temporary agitations and passions of the day, not be- 
cause its members are indifferent to them, but because here 
their diverse opinions and tendencies are forgotten in their 
common interest in a special work which does not involve 
them, the Historical Society is an appropriate place for 
memorials of those men about whom have centered the 
clashing interests of their contemporaries, and who praised 
and blamed, loved, feared and hated as those interests may 
have dictated, have passed away with but one agreed and 
universal opinion concerning them, the undeniable truth 
that they have been great factors in the shaping and devel- 
opment of the social organism in which they lived. Here 
the materials will be found by which in the cold, clear light 
of history the final verdict of those who come after us, for- 
getful of our petty individual quarrels and selfish interests, 
and mindful alone of great streams of tendencies and be- 
liefs, will be formed concerning their work and character. 
Here too should be, if possible, for those who will form 
that verdict, the opportunity to search out in the artist’s 
presentation of face and figure the relation of physical to 
moral and intellectual character in the subject of their study. 

Such an opportunity, beyond that given in almost any 
other case I have ever known, will be afforded to one who 
stands in after time before this wonderful portrait of John 
Peter Altgeld, the twentieth Governor of Illinois. This I 
say in appreciation of the genius of the artist who painted it, 
Mr. Ralph Clarkson of Chicago. No friend of Governor 
Altgeld who knew him well can see it, unmoved by admira- 


25 


tion, not alone for the technical skill which the portrait 
shows, but for that infinitely higher, nobler and rarer thing, 
that ability, not to be described nor taught, by which the 
true artist in portraiture is known, to suggest and bring upon 
the canvas the heart and mind and very soul which speaks in 
life through eye and lip. 


Knowing as I do the devoted friendship and affection 
which he who has given this picture to this society had for 
Governor Altgeld; knowing, too, as I do from my own in- 
most feeling, how one who loved Altgeld must feel towards 
this presentment of his very living self—I must with fervor 
and sincerity express our appreciation of the sacrifice to 
public spirit and to true loyalty to the memory of his friend 
which the donor must have made in parting with his indi- 
vidual possession of it even to trust it to our careful guar- 
dianship. 


I am here to say but a very few words concerning the 
subject of this picture. Mine is not the duty to-night to 
discuss those acts of his public life, which have been most 
criticized and most commended, most blamed and most 
praised, according to the beliefs and the environments of 
those who were considering them. 


This has been sometimes in the past my duty as I con- 
ceived it—my privilege as I always believed it to be. But 
tt is not my task in this presence and at this time. It is 
better so, for we tread in these matters on the ashes of 
but lately burning fires. 

It is to the tribunal of the future that as to these things 
Governor Altgeld’s friends and opponents must, whether 
they would or not, submit their difference. For us who be- 
lieved in him and the causes for which he stood most 
strongly it is a confident appeal we make, and we can afford 
to wait. 


“For Humanity sweeps onward: Where to-day the martyr 
stands, 
On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his 
hands; 
Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fag- 
gots burn, 
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe re- 
turn, 
To glean up the scattered ashes into History’s golden urn.” 


26 


To-night I would call your attention only to a few per- 
sonal traits of Governor Altgeld, which all must admire, 
to a few salient achievements of his life which show his 
self-reliance, his courage and his indomitable will, and to 
one or two of the matters removed from all controversy 
which must make his administration memorable in the his- 
tory of Illinois. 

John Peter Altgeld was born in Germany in 1847. He 
was brought to this country as an infant by his emigrant 
parents, who settled near Mansfield, Ohio. His father and 
mother were poor and perhaps of narrow views in regard 
to the training of their children. He wished for a liberal 
education. Conscious of intellectual power even as a young 
boy, he wanted to make the best of himself God had made 
possible. His schooling was very scanty. Like Lincoln, 
as a youth, he read few books but good ones. Like him, too, 
he read them in the midst of discouragement and hardships. 
In 1863 at the age of sixteen he became a private soldier in 
the Union army. Returning to his father’s farm at the 
close of the war, he remained at work for his parénts until 
he came to be twenty-one. Then with only a very few dol- 
lars borrowed from a friend he started west to seek his 
fortune. He worked as a common laborer for a time, I 
remember that he told me once, in building a railroad in 
Arkansas. I suppose it could not have been for long, for 
the latter part of 1869 found him a school teacher in a 
country school in Savannah, Missouri, and a law student 
in the office of a local lawyer at such times as he could 
snatch from his necessary work for a livelihood. In 1872 
he was admitted to the bar, and almost immediately his 
ability gaining recognition, was made city attorney of 
Savannah. In 1874 he was elected State’s attorney of the 
county of which Savannah was the county seat. But the 
duties which met him in that office were not to his taste. 
He served a year and then resigned and came to Chicago 
with the scanty savings of his three years’ practice to hew 
out his fortune and make his name among the citizens of 
Illinois. 

I well remember my first meeting him. Comparatively 
recent incomers to Chicago, my partner and myself had 
taken modest offices in the newly constructed Reaper Block 
at the corner of Clark and Washington streets. An office 
opposite in the hall was for a long time vacant, when one 
morning a young man appeared to ask us for the loan of 


27 


some trifling object and told us that he was a lawyer, that 
he had taken the room described and that he intended to 
partition off a small part of it for a sleeping room and 
thus live as well as do butsiness in his office. He was not, © 
as such things are superficially considered, an attractive or 
graceful personality, and yet there was something about 
him that instantly arrested our attention and that invited 
our respect and friendship. It was only a little while there- 
after that he commanded our admiration as well. We soon 
found it to our advantage to associate him with us in some 
litigation of importance that came to us, and I was closely 
and intimately his friend as he was building up slowly and 
laboriously the practice which he finally left when he went 
upon the bench in 1886. 

I will give you an illustration of the kind of man he 
was in that self-development and education which made him 
at the last a master of concise, nervous, eloquent English 
and a most effective public speaker. Talking with me one 
day in his office about the slow progress he was 
making in the drafting of some papers, he said, “I have to 
look at the dictionary for one word in every five to know 
that I have spelled it right.” “Oh, take the chances,” I re- 
plied. “That will do for you,” he said, “not for me. I have 
to get while I do my work those means of doing it accurate- 
ly which you were fortunate enough to get in preparation 
for it.” Thus in those days, while he did not know how 
to spell accurately, he never spelled inaccurately, for at the 
cost of whatever time and drudgery was necessary he always 
looked until the accurate construction of the word had fas- 
tened itself in his mind, never to be lost. 

In his little book on Oratory, in an incidental way, he 
shows how this idea of thoroughness had permeated all 
his thinking. 

He says, “But let no man suppose that a speech should 
be simply an elegant or nice affair. Dilletanteism excites 
contempt. The idea I wish to inculcate in the minds of 
the young is that they must acquire elegance of diction and 
nicety and accuracy of expression; they must cultivate the 
voice until they have a perfect command of it; they must 
accustom the mind to orderly and logical arrangement, and 
when they wish to discuss a subject get all the facts, not 
only into the mind, but into the very blood, then pour the 
whole soul into it, and they will approach oratory.” 

As time went on I found more and more John Altgeld 


28 


to be that which has never been better described than by 
IF. IF. Browne, the editor of the Chicago: Dial, in a foreign 
Review: NG 

de “A pale, intellectual, thoughtful man with a sad and 
serious face, a temperament reflective and philosophical, 
yet alert and ready, calm, intrepid and inflexible, able to 
stand alone against a thousand, yet quick to see the essen- 
tial or potential elements in a situation and master in shap- 
ing them to desired ends; a man impatient at obstacles and 
objections; yet one to whom ultimate purposes and princi- 
ples are more than present gains, and who knows how to 
bide his time; of unyielding courage and endurance, yet 
no voluntary martyr; able equally to bear attacks in silence 
or to give back blow for blow; a friend of humanity and a 
hater of injustice to others as to himself.” 

His life was laborious always, it was hard and narrow 
as well until the kindness and encouragement shown him by 
the late Mr. Goudy and Judge Shepard and others who I 
may not mention without their permission because they are 
living—to all of whom he never failed to express and to 
show his deep gratitude—placed his fortunes at a higher 
point than unaided he could as soon have struggled to. 
Even then and after his marriage the ill health of his wife 
and of himself might well have daunted a less determined 
and unconquerable will. Once with his wife ill in an ad- 
joining room, he, stretched helpless on his bed in another, 
with difficulty securing even the attendance necessary for 
the most ordinary household duties, alternating between a 
burning fever and wretched chills, sent for me and insisted 
that I should bring for our joint consideration the brief of 
our antagonists in a pending lawsuit in which our reply was 
shortly due. Nothing appalled him, nothing turned him 
back, and yet he was nearly always a reserved, quiet, self- 
contained and self-controlled man. Injustice to himself as 
to others did stir him sometimes to impassioned speech. I 
remember well a rebuke and indeed a punishment inflicted 
upon him for quick resentment in a court room to a per- 
sonal attack on him made by counsel opposing him in a 
lawsuit in which he was personally interested. He was at 
the time himself upon the bench. More loyal than the 
Prince, more papal than the Pope, some of his friends called 
on him—and I among them—to express their displeasure at 
the discipline inflicted on him by his brother Judge. 

“Nonsense,” he answered, “it was exactly right. I was 


29 


angry, acted foolishly and was treated according to the 
Judge’s duty and my own deserts.” 

I mention this that you may see that, long mindful of 
injuries and injustice as he might be, his was not the blind 
vindictiveness which his foes ascribed to him. 

His self-reliance was superb. Once in a time of per- 
sonal discouragement a friend of mine went to him and 
asked his advice as to whom he should turn for comfort and 
counsel. His answer was characteristic and it was a favor- 
ite idea of his | have often heard him express. 


“Ask no man! Go out into the night and look straight 
up to the stars. Take comfort and counsel of them.” 

But those who knew and loved him best, who were 
close to his inner life and heart, know that composed, silent, 
seemingly indifferent to criticism and clamor as in public 
life he was, no man ever lived kinder, gentler, more humane 
in his feelings for the unfortunate and the weak, no man 
more affectionate as a friend, or in his family relations. 
It was said over his grave with truth that when bitter re- 
proaches were heaped on him they did not fall on deaf ears 
or an unanswering soul, but that they bore no terrors with 
them like those of the condemnation of his own conscience, 
that he loved his friends, but could bid them one by one 
good-bye when they failed to follow where that conscience 
led. 

Of his public life I have said that I shall say but little 
here to-night. He left the bench to become Governor of 
this great State of Illinois. The enthusiasm that he felt 
for its magnificent resources and its boundless opportunities 
I could not well describe if I would. Many times have I 
seen his usual composure and his calm diction give way to 
enthusiasm and impassioned utterance as he dwelt on them. 
He loved Chicago and he loved Illinois even more. I was 
brought into frequent official contact with him while I was 
the legal adviser of the Lincoln Park Commissioners, during 
his administration. Whatever ignorant or prejudiced criti- 
cism may have said, I can bear witness from the most inti- 
mate personal knowledge that the great pleasure grounds 
of the people were the subject of his constant and watchful 
care with an eye single to the greatest benefit to be obtained 
from them for the greatest number of people. That the 
Lake Shore, which had been largely lost to the public south 
of the Chicago River, should be preserved north of the River 
to the northern limit of Lake View as the basis of suitable 


30 


recreation grounds to be built on the submerged shallows of 
Lake Michigan, for the use of the countless multitudes who 
are to follow us, was one of the projects closest to his heart. 
Those pleasure grounds have been assured for the future, 
and they will be an enduring monument of Governor Alt- 
geld’s administration which he would most appreciate. 


But there is another already in existence, which Gov- ! 
ernor Altgeld to his great satisfaction lived to see already 
far advanced. I mean the University of Lllinois at Cham- ° 


paign. I speak not only from my own knowledge of his | 


constant and enthusiastic interest in its development, but 


_also from that of those who, knowing but little of it at the 

time, have come to be in charge of its affairs to-day. “Gov- 
ernor Altgeld raised this institution,” said President James 
to me not long ago, “from a comparatively insignificant 
country college to the rank of a great school of learning, 
the foundations of which are broad and deep.” I feel sure 
that those of you who have of late years visited the Univer- 
sity of Illinois will agree with me that the work that it is 
now doing and will continue, let us hope, for ali the future 
history of the State to do, is of incalculable importance to 
the present and future well being and dignity of our great 
commonwealth. 

Let no one draw from Governor Altgeld’s words or 
deeds, be it too enthusiastic friend or hostile critic, that he 
misjudged or failed to appreciate the training for youth, 
either in the liberal arts or in technical skill, which he 
lacked in his own young days and so sorely missed. 

He made it up for himself by his inherent ability, his 
indomitable will and his persistent, unremitting industry, 
but never for a moment did he waver in his belief that in 
the high ideals which a true and broad education inculcates 
among the young men who properly appreciate its dignity 
and importance, lies the true hope of democracy and of the 
Republic. 

I ask your attention now to two quotations from Gov- 
ernor Altgeld’s own words, one in an address that he made 
to the students of the University he loved, and one which 
are his last words, on the day he fell pleading for the op- 
pressed and the defeated on the platform at Joliet, and which 
are inscribed on this portrait now exhibited to you. They 


better than any words his friends can use show to you the 
man 


The first is this: 


31 


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“Young men, life is before you. Two voices are call- 
ing you—one coming from the swamps of selfishness and 
force, where success means death; and the other from the 
hilltops of justice and progress, where even failure brings 
glory. Two lights are seen in your horizon, one the fast 
fading marsh light of power, and the other the slowly ris- 
ing sun of human brotherhood. Two ways lie open for 
you, one leading to an ever lower and lower plain, where 
are heard the cries of despair and the curses of the poor, 
where manhood shrivels and possession rots down the pos- 
sessor; and the other leading off to the highlands of the 
morning, where are heard the glad shouts of humanity and 
where honest effort is rewarded with immortality.” 


And the other is this: 

“T am not discouraged. Things will right themselves. 
The pendulum swings one way and then another. But the 
steady pull of gravitation is towards the center of the earth. 
Any structure must be plumb if it is to endure, or the build- 
ing will fall. So it is with nations. Wrong may seem to 
triumph. Right may seem to be defeated. But the gravita- 
tion of eternal justice is toward the Throne of God. Any 
political institution which is to endure must be plumb with 
that line of justice.” 


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